Why Men Should Learn to Dance
They're all beautiful. And they're all waiting for you.
As the song comes to an end, the next song was immediately blended in by the DJ. It’s the same salsa music I hear every Friday night. I’m learning the pattern of each song. When they start. When they end. When the beat changes in the middle.
I drop her hands, give her a hug, and guide her by the hips towards the edge of the dance floor where five more beautiful woman are standing there, waiting for a guy to ask her to dance. I go up to one, put my hand on her shoulder, and say “Let’s go.”
As the night goes on, the music begins to change from the Latin dance styles like salsa and bachata to reggaeton. Some of the dancers start to leave. One woman, who is an excellent dancer, looked at me with eyes of disappointment.
“Next time, you and me,” she says as she points to me and then back at herself.
I give her a hug as she leaves the club. I’m surprised by her reaction. But I shouldn’t be. I didn’t dance with her once.
“You know, you didn’t dance with me once. Again.”
This time, a different woman.
“You’ll have to grab me next time, I was busy,” I respond, shouting over the sound of the reggaeton music as I try to make my exit.
“You’re a popular guy,” she says.
I guess I am.
Four years ago, I was sitting in my car with this Russian girl I had been seeing. She was a Bachata instructor. I didn’t know what Bachata was. Her body was beautiful. From the little I knew about bachata by looking at her; I was already interested.
“Here, I want to try something with you,” she said as she grabbed my phone. “Have you ever even heard Bachata music before?”
“No, I don’t think so,” I responded.
“Listen.”
She played a Latin song. In the background, I heard bongos. The beat was clear and distinct. The rhythm made me want to twist my shoulders. It made me want to dance.
“Find the one in the beat,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I responded. The music kept playing.
“Find where the beat starts.”
I half understood what she meant. I sat there and listened for a few more seconds. I bobbed my head side to side in sync with the timing of the beat.
“One,” I said.
“Try again,” she said.
I bobbed my head a couple more times. I waited for the beat to come back around.
“One,” I repeated.
“Have you done this before?” she asked.
“No. I don’t even know what I’m doing now.”
“Do it again,” she demanded.
I bobbed my head again.
“One,” I said.
“You need to learn how to dance,” she said to me. She looked at me in the eyes with a look of amusement and surprise. “It takes me weeks to teach people how to do that.”
Seven months ago, I got dumped by a woman I thought I was going to marry. After the breakup, I didn’t want to be alone. And I wanted to get laid. I read copious amounts of dating books. The pickup artist books were predicated solely on seduction and faking status and charisma. They were fun to read. But not my style.
Other books were more foundational and reasonable. One was “Mate” by Tucker Max and Geoffrey Miller. Another was “Models” by Mark Manson. Both books gave one piece of common-sense advice: put yourself where women are likely to be. Try a dance class. The ratio of men to women is usually favorable.
Okay, I can do that.
I began by taking a girl who I had met on a dating app to a salsa class. Afterwards, we went to dinner. I was ecstatic.
“We need to do that again. I want to go out and dance right now,” I said to her as we ate sushi.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I didn’t know enough salsa to go out and dance salsa. I learned two moves that night. Cross body lead. Right turn. And I didn’t learn them well. But I was hooked.
I kept bringing new girls to the weekend dance classes. One was a Latina girl who danced her whole life growing up. Afterwards, we went out to a club that plays salsa, bachata, and merengue music. Many of the people in the local Latin dance scene go there. She and I danced for hours. We did it again the next week. And again the following week. I stopped seeing other girls. We went out again. Then, I stopped seeing her.
By this point, the people around me started realizing I had some talent at dance. One of the things that made me so enthusiastic about it was that I got a lot of praise. And I got more of it from dancing than anywhere else in my life.
The first weekend that I went out without my Latina dance partner, I sat and watched everyone else dance for forty-five minutes. I got up, said goodbye to everyone, and left the club before ten-thirty. I drove home disappointed. I was blaming the dance group’s choice of venue. I blamed the music for not being any good.
But really, I was scared. I was scared to dance. Without the comfort of a dance partner, I didn’t want to seem like a fool. I didn’t want to approach a woman who I hardly knew, or don’t know at all, make myself vulnerable by asking her to dance, and then proceed to show her how terrible I am at moving my body. Not happening.
And I’m not the only one. Most of the guys from the dance classes I go to will go to the club after class, sit at the bar, and talk amongst themselves. Meanwhile all the guys who have been dancing for years have their way with the beautiful women who completely outnumber them.
The following weekend after my quick exit, I didn’t even go out. I simply drove home after class. The weekend after that, as I clutched my steering wheel in frustration, I told myself If you don’t go out, you’ll never get any good at this.
At class on that next Friday night, I asked every woman I danced with…
”Are you going out tonight?”
“Where? What do you mean? Who is going?”
“To Giuseppe in the Lion. There will be Latin dancing. Everyone is going to be there,” I lied.
You see, I figured if I could convince all these women I just met, and the few friends I already had, to go out dancing, I wouldn’t be so scared to ask them to dance. I already knew them.
Then I got to this one girl. She was young. Twenty-two. With brown eyes that sparkled. She had an interesting name that I immediately forgot.
“You better be there tonight,” I said to her.
“Where?” she asked.
“At Giuseppe and the Lion. Everyone is going out after this.”
“Okay, I’ll go.”
And they all went. The night was incredible. I got that girl with an interesting name’s number. And I texted her when I got home to tell her that I had a great time dancing with her. And then she immediately corrected me on her name.
She became my next dance partner. Then the Latina girl came back. Then I started practicing with them almost every night.
The reason women so greatly outnumber men in the dance community is because men have giant egos. And these egos lead to there being two great filters that stop men from getting any good at dancing.
When you begin learning to dance, you find that there are two basic types of men on the dance floor at a club.
First, there are the experts. The ones who have been dancing for years. And by years I usually mean decades. They are the instructors around town. They are former pros. They have moves. They twirl girls around. They lead them through complex sequences with grace. They have style. They make simple shit look good. And the women love them. They love dancing with them.
Then there are the beginners. The guys that go to one or two dance classes a week. They typically don’t go out dancing. But if they do, they sit on the sidelines. They nurse their drinks. Maybe on occasion they ask a girl to dance. Or they get asked to dance by a girl who knows them from a dance class out of pity. And because she is bored. And because she was just sitting around waiting for one of the guys who is an expert to ask her. But he was busy dancing with whoever he wanted.
The beginners who make it out to the club passed the first great filter. The first great filter is when a guy goes to a dance class for the first few times. This is surprisingly difficult for most men. They must move their body in a sensual way in front of a woman for the first time in their life. They must make small talk with many women, some of which are very pretty. They then must awkwardly lead them through dance moves he just learned while she politely tells him “You’re doing great.” Meanwhile, she is bored. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he sees one of the two experienced guys in the class grab that same girl, lead her through that simple move easily, then goes on to lead her through five far more complex moves, all while she is smiling and laughing and touching his chest. Oof.
This filters a lot of guys out. Especially the guys that bring their dates to class. They don’t want to get emasculated by another man in front of their woman. I’ve seen it happen a dozen times. An advanced guy gets to wrap his arms around his girl, spin her around easily, and make her laugh. Which all happens just after she yelled at him for not doing it right. She then scowls at him out of the corner of her eye while he dances with another woman. See ya never.
The guys who come alone are usually just desperate for dating opportunities (yes, this is me). They don’t have a lot of charisma. They are awkward inside and out. And the reality of this gets amplified in dance class. Good luck. Bye bye.
But if they can make it through the gauntlet of a dance class, they will make it through to great filter two: the club.
Like I said, there are usually two types of men at the club. The beginners and the experts. There are very few guys like me out there. The guys with some talent, who are learning, who are clearly not a beginner, but who aren’t even close to the experts.
But getting to my level isn’t easy. At the club, the male ego hinders men again. But this time, it’s even worse.
Two weeks after I convinced everyone to go to the club and I got to meet the girl with the sparkly brown eyes, three of us went to Giuseppe. Sparkly-eyed girl, my friend Dave, and myself. Dave has been dancing for a while. Far longer than me. He is a great guy. Tons of fun. The girls love to dance with him. He is a great dancer. But he is not one of the experts. He is one of the few in-between sorts of guys.
Sparkly-eyed girl and I danced a lot together. She danced with some other guys. I did a lot of watching the experts. And was feeling too intimidated to ask any of the other women to dance but her. Thirty minutes in, we lost Dave.
The next day at salsa class, I asked Dave what happened. He said that he felt intimidated. The guys there were great. And he was too nervous to ask the other women, who were all amazing that night, to dance.
“I feel you. But we need to go through this. This is what will separate us from everyone else,” I said to him.
He looked at me with a smile. He knew I was right.
You could call me an intermediate dancer. To get to my level, you need to be committed. You need to dance almost every night. You need to find girls who will dance with you late on a Tuesday night after work. You need to do private lessons. And then trade those private lessons for your living room, YouTube, and your favorite dance partner. You need to be listening to salsa music in the car on the way to work so you can feel the beat. You need to be able to find the “one” in the first seconds of hearing a song. This is your cue to start dancing. Your timing will be everything. Without it, you are nothing.
You need to build sequences of moves in the notes app on your phone. Coming up with such names for your new moves like the “Bow and Arrow,” the “Jet Ski Sequence”, and, my favorite, the “Big Stir Right Turn Crossbody with Pseudo Hammerlock to Unwind”. Then you need to memorize your sequences. This will take hours of practice with your partner. Hopefully she doesn’t mind spending all this time with you.
Sometimes you’ll practice alone because everyone was busy. You’ll catch yourself dancing while working out in between sets.
You need to dream about dancing. You need to create group chats with your dance friends to practice outside of dance classes.
You think I’m joking? You think I’m taking this too seriously? Guess what, your competition is professional dancers. Your competition are the people who own dance studios. Your competition is teaching other people to dance. Your competition is taking that girl you brought to the club, holding her close, grinding his hips on her, emasculating you in front of everyone.
Then, you must dance with her while she is still sweaty from dancing with him, and proceed to lead her through moves with a small fraction of the skill and even less style than he did.
And the whole time, your fragile little male ego is going to have to fucking deal with it.
Practice a few times a week and go through this for years. Practice every night, and maybe it’s only a few months.
That’s what it takes to get through the second great filter. Supreme dedication. Obsession. Patience. Learning. Growth. Frustration. Fear. Jealousy.
Because let’s be honest, you’re not tough enough to deal with your ego being bruised for years.
You’ll want to give up when you dance with a beautiful girl who you know is a pro. And the nerves erase your mind of that sequence you just spent all week memorizing.
Cross body lead. Right turn. Cross body lead. Right turn. Basic step. These are the first two moves you learned. You’re flailing. Smile at her as you try to make it seem like you’re just warming up to some big move that will blow her mind. Cross body lead. Right turn.
The song ends. She is bored.
She gives you a hug, says “thanks”, and gets asked to dance by one of the studio owners. He holds her close. He pairs an Enchufla with a Titanic with a Whatchamacallit.
She spins. She laughs. Game over. Go home.
But don’t. Stay. Suffer. Sit with your emotions.
Practice that next week. Work on your sequence.
The next week you come back. You’re too scared to ask her to dance.
Practice again. Work on your sequence. Learn a new move.
The next week you come back. You ask her to dance.
“Oh, you’re good!” she says.
The song ends. Big hug. Was she impressed?
Practice. Work. Come back. She asks you to dance this time.
Show her moves she has never seen.
“Look who is teaching who!” she says.
Practice. Work. Come back.
You don’t have time to dance with her. Too many other women.
“Next time, you and me,” she says as she points to you and then back at herself.